Last night after work, I headed over to the Cooper Square Hotel with great expectations. Polk Audio, the award-winning designer and manufacturer of high performance audio products for the past 40 years, was introducing the industry’s first line of headphones designed specifically for athletes. And so it only made sense for the Baltimore-based company to tab Rudy Gay as a brand ambassador.

“We are changing the sonic landscape for an entire generation of athletes and active headphone users,” says Ben Newhall, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Polk Audio. “Our engineers have used the same breakthrough technology we apply to our award-winning speaker design to create a series of headphones that are comfortable, rugged in durability, aggressively muscular in style and all with Polk’s world-class commitment to superior sound quality.”

The media launch event was hosted by SportsCenter anchor Linda Cohn, while Gay was joined on the panel by Thaddeus Young, professional lacrosse player Paul Rabil, and U.S. Women’s National Soccer team member Heather Mitts, who is also an official brand ambassador and used in Polk’s first commercial spot (below) alongside Gay.

While I haven’t had a chance to test out to headphones yet, I spoke with Rudy and Thad about them at length before the presentation – and they absolutely love them. While Beats By Dre and Skullcandy are clearly the most popular brands among ballers, try working out with a large, over-the-head pair on. It’s not easy. The Polk Audio Performance Line-Up features four UltraFit sport headphones that include in-ear, on-ear and in-ear canal models.